17 Feb How Not to Blog

I have been blogging for several years now and as I have done so, I have read thousands of posts by hundreds of other bloggers in various spaces on the internet. So my experience ranges outside of just the M&A blog, but where there is even a greater deal more chatter than there is here. In fact, most of the chatter online is more in the technology and software sector than anywhere else. As I have delved a great deal into the blogosphere, I have come across some very good bloggers and some who are, well, not as good. I don’t consider myself terrible, but I am nowhere near the caliber of some of the professional writers who draft their prose on the web. However, I have learned a few bloggers etiquette techniques, just from having my ear to the ground.

Don’t Always Sell

I know it is tempting to have every post you craft act as a sales pitch, but people rarely read that stuff. They may find it through a search online, but they are rarely going to read through a bunch of posts that are all about how cool your company is.

Another problem with always using your blog to sell yourself or your products or services is that your company will always look very one-sided and self-serving. People don’t like that on the web. Google has always prided itself on returning results that people actually want to read, not some junk content that is a ramble about how cool your company is and how many years you have been doing what you have doing.

In addition, the most salesman-like blog posts out there today usually end with an entire paragraph which is nothing more than a blatant sales pitch. If people have gotten that far in your blog (which most of them probably have not because a “lighter” version of the pitch was infiltrated throughout), they will most likely move on from there, not reading anything else. If in fact your post did have interesting content before that, I’m sure the person visiting may click through some other portions of your site to get see all about who you are and what you do.

Give Advice Sparingly

Much like the aforementioned issue that comes from selling too much, giving advice too much can be exhausting as well (just like this post itself—is it nothing more than giving adviceJ ) When you do give advice-filled posts, just make sure they are not the only posts you are writing. Here are some other topics that are interesting to readers and the search engines:

Industry buzz

Industry news

Personal stuff, people often like to read and hear things from the heart

How to get traffic, but get hated

Getting traffic is not to difficult on the internet as long as you are okay with being hated; that’s right hated. The way to get large amounts of traffic to your blog is this: talk about specific people or organizations in a negative way. Be an industry critic. Blog about some scandal with the latest CEO of XYZ corp and be scathing in your remarks. The meaner you are the better. This is how to get massive amounts of traffic very quickly. How do you think sites like the Huffington Post get so much traffic? Of course, in our industry, it is wildly important to be as professional as possible. Investment bankers have been getting a very bad rap for the last few years. Keeping it gentlemanly and professional is your best bet in this type of an industry. At least it has been in the past. I’m sure sometime in the future, we will see some punk author who wishes to get his/her name out there write something to get some quick traffic and a name (albeit negative) for him/herself.

So there you have it. There are a literally hundreds of posts just like this, but after reading some industry blogs lately, I thought this would be an enlightening post for some who may not have been as used to blogging as I. There I go, breaking my cardinal rule of giving advice. Happy blogging!

Nate Nead is a licensed investment banker and Principal at Deal Capital Partners, LLC which includes InvestmentBank.com and Crowdfund.co. Nate works works with middle-market corporate clients looking to acquire, sell, divest or raise growth capital from qualified buyers and institutional investors. He is the chief evangelist of the company's growing digital investment banking platform. Reliance Worldwide Investments, LLC a member of FINRA and SIPC and registered with the SEC and MSRB. Nate resides in Seattle, Washington.

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